Key findings at a glance
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- Vernon is a unique city dominated by industry that came to the brink of being dismantled due to a long legacy of corruption
- To survive a serious threat from state lawmakers, city officials promised governance reform and has begun to increase residential population — from just 112 to 222 residents as of the 2020 census.
- Still, the city has significant longstanding environmental issues, with many businesses storing hazardous chemicals and well-documented contamination of land.
Five miles southeast of Downtown Los Angeles lies a unique, bustling little city, self-described as “exclusively industrial.” It faced accusations of political and ecological corruption so serious that a dozen years ago the State Legislature came within a hair’s breadth of abolishing it.
The city of Vernon survived that near-death experience, which would have seen it dissolved as an independent city and remade as an unincorporated area of L.A. County. Vernon’s survival was thanks to a huge lobbying campaign by its city government — as well as business interests anxious to preserve it as a sanctuary that offered firms substantial savings to locate there. Some labor unions joined the campaign, fearful that businesses might leave a disincorporated Vernon and take with them tens of thousands of jobs for blue collar commuters that included some union members.
Ultimately, these pro-Vernon forces cut a deal with a key legislator who persuaded colleagues to let the city survive in return for its promise to reform its governance and double the size of its extremely small residential population.
The 5-square-mile city made good on those promises, but remains dogged by environmental woes:
- The South Coast Air Quality Management District estimates that…
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